7.25.2007

Feeling Blue

One of the most fascinating stories I’ve ever come across is the book “The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear”. The book introduces you to characters like the Minipirates, the Babbling Billows, Professor Abdullah Nightingale, the Troglotroll, and Fredda the Alpine Imp, but also to places like Hobgoblin Island, Tornado City, the Demerara Desert and the Valley of Discarded Ideas. According to reviewer Georges T Dodd, it is “like Robin Williams and Monty Python joining to narrate a Harold Shea adventure”. I don’t know about that, but I do know it’s a really good read! Extra credit goes to John Brownjohn, who must have had a both hard and joyful time translating from German.

When I told a friend of mine living in Germany about my “discovery”, he kindly informed me that Käpt’n Blaubär is to Germany what Donald Duck is to Sweden on Christmas Eve. Well, German culture is apparently not my bag. Maybe this is my ticket to improving my German though…